<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Dryad Together by FATHOM_FanGirl</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29406744">Dryad Together</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/FATHOM_FanGirl/pseuds/FATHOM_FanGirl'>FATHOM_FanGirl</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ben Solo Lives, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Devotion, Exogol, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Force Bond (Star Wars), I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Bad At Tagging, One Shot, Post-Canon Fix-It, Redeemed Ben Solo, Rey Needs A Hug (Star Wars), Reylo - Freeform, Short, Short One Shot, The Force, They get hugs &amp; kisses, Unconsciousness, Valentine's Day, in like two hours, maybe four</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 10:35:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29406744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/FATHOM_FanGirl/pseuds/FATHOM_FanGirl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Rey watched as Ben's eye fell closed after their kiss. His body falling backwards with her hands breaking his fall. THIS ISN'T HOW IT ENDS!!!!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dryad Together</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My gift to the Reylo &amp; Adjacent Fandom this Valentine's day.<br/>No Beta for this one so please forgive this Dyslexic for mistakes I just had to get this out.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He could still feel the imprint of her lips against his. That was his first thought of consciousness. The same consciousness that seemed to float in nothingness, limbs numb as if no longer attached to his body. In the empty of wherever he was, he could only hear one thing over and over again.</p>
<p>“....Ben.”</p>
<p>The breathy disbelief of her voice had filled him with a sense of coming home. The shine of her smile rivalled the sun she had spent her formative years being beaten by day after day. He had done that. He had caused that smile. </p>
<p>He did. Him.</p>
<p>Ben. </p>
<p>He was Ben.</p>
<p>Ben tried to move but found his body, twitch his fingers, wiggle his toes, anything! He tried to open his eyes. To see something other than unending hollow space behind his eyelids. The freckles scattered on her face would be preferable. Her own hazel eyes almost glowing at him would be better.</p>
<p>He had been stroking her hair before...hadn’t he? Memorising the feel of the strands slipping through his fingers as their foreheads rested together before he pulled away...yes… that was it. Her smile had faltered as his eyes had closed when he had lost the fight to keep them open. He was so tired. But she was safe, that’s all that mattered to him.</p>
<p>He had saved her. That was enough. Enough for him. Enough for the rest of his life. At least that’s what he told himself. If he was being honest, he wanted that life to have been a part of hers, in any way she deemed him worthy of.</p>
<p>He loved her.</p>
<p>He loved Rey.</p>
<p>He wished he had told her. Kriff he wished so many things had happened differently. He wished he’d had the strength to stand beside her sooner, maybe then he’d be standing beside her right now and not in this place.</p>
<p>Thud!</p>
<p>What was that? </p>
<p>“Maker...Please…”</p>
<p>That wasn’t his voice. It was her’s. Rey’s.</p>
<p>Ben doubled his efforts to open his eyes again. She was there, she was close! He had to open his eye!</p>
<p>The next thud brought the sense of a rug being pulled from under him but he didn’t land on a hard floor. Instead, he landed on something soft, something warm something much smaller than himself. Ben felt her outline, having committed her shape to memory during their one embrace convinced there wouldn’t be another no matter if he survived healing her or not. He would gladly have given his life to the Force to save hers. He was sure he had.</p>
<p>The sensation of cold wetness on his legs said otherwise.</p>
<p>Rey breathed deeply from her nose, exasperated at the fourth time her legs had given way. Her resolve wouldn’t break. She could see the entrance of the ice fortress. She would get to the X-Wing. She would get both of them there. Ben had saved her, she was going to save him as well.</p>
<p>Raising onto her right forearm, Rey adjusted the placement of each broad arm over her shoulders. Looking behind her, Rey saw Ben’s comatose face resting on her shoulder blade, giving her another second wind.</p>
<p>Next, she rose to her knees, then to her feet, hunched over, the physical weight of Ben was nothing compared to the weight of their bond in the Force. The bond she couldn’t bare alone.</p>
<p>Their height difference was such that his shins were dragging along Exogol’s ice floor behind her every step. The added friction did give some stability but it didn’t prevent her face from meeting the ice causing, even more, scrapes and blood than her battle with Palpatine.</p>
<p>Hearing her name was the cause of her next tumble downwards.</p>
<p>“Rey…”</p>
<p>If it was real or a projection in her mind Rey couldn’t tell but that didn’t stop her rolling them both over to cradle Ben in her arms search his face again. </p>
<p>Little by little she watched his eyes flutter open as she brushed away the hair that had fallen over his features.</p>
<p>“Ben?” The word was a mere breath above a whisper. Rey could hardly believe she was seeing his Alderaanian honey eyes adjusting to the surrounding lighting coming to focus on her.</p>
<p>Ben brought up his own hand to caress her cheek, face softening further somehow at the skin to skin confirmation that she was real. </p>
<p>“I...I’m sorry... didn’t mean...to leave you…” The word ‘alone’ didn’t need to be said. Their bond, having been weakened briefly after all the Jedi had poured through her, was now even more than before.</p>
<p>She could feel his remorse just as he felt her joy, but most importantly they felt complete with a connection unseen for generations and aeons. Each flowing in the other’s veins.</p>
<p>“I never thought you would…” She assured.</p>
<p>Ben didn’t have the strength to lift himself to meet her so he softly tugged her’s down, gaze unwavering as their foreheads rested together again. </p>
<p>“I never will,” He vowed with sincere intensity before questioning “If you’ll have me?”</p>
<p>Rey was still for a single shared heartbeat before the space between their lips vanished with a kiss.</p>
<p>It was a few more heartbeats before the kiss had to break, heavy breaths reverberating off the walls as the pair required oxygen before Rey answered his plea.</p>
<p>“Always.” </p>
<p>That triggered another kiss, this one more desperate as if he hoped the kiss would prevent her from taking back that oath of a word.</p>
<p>After several more kisses, assurances from both of them to the other, Rey and Ben worked to stand. His body was still predominantly uncooperative, in need of Rey taking the bulk of his weight, a broken femur and foot didn’t aid the situation either, but together they traversed the last few hundred feet to their ships. </p>
<p>It took a hot moment of looking between the vessels for Rey’s uncertainty to grow. Ben looked down at Rey as he pulled his blaster and fired on the one he had arrived on.  The blast hit a damaged section of the black spacecraft causing a chain reaction that crescendoed in the taller ship melting through the ice below in flames engulfing it as it went.</p>
<p>Receiving his message loud and clear, Rey held him closer before starting for the X-wing again with confidence filling her stride.</p>
<p>Settling Ben into the pilot seat first Rey lowered herself down to his lap flicking switches as she went. It was a tight fit but the dryads weren’t complaining. Feeling his arms encircle her waist her movements paused before continuing one-handed, the other being brought to rest on his arm.</p>
<p>Activating the hyperdrive afforded the two some time to talk.</p>
<p>Rey couldn’t turn properly in the confines of the cockpit so she simply sank into Ben’s chest, reaching above her to stroke his cheek.</p>
<p>“What do you want to do? Where do you want to go?”</p>
<p>“I...I don’t know.” He admitted having just realised himself that it was over. He no longer haad Snoke or Palpatine, the dark side in any form whispering to him. He was solely himself. The choice was his.</p>
<p>“If I can be with you...any place will be perfect.”</p>
<p>Ben couldn’t see her cheeks turning pink but he knew they were.</p>
<p>“What about… the future?” Rey started “There’s no one else...Just us. The Last Jedi.”</p>
<p>“You. You are the last Jedi Rey.” Ben corrected. “I am nothing. No one.”</p>
<p>“Not to me.” She implored him with his own words from what felt like a lifetime ago in Snoke’s Throne room. </p>
<p>So much had changed in the last year...so much had changed in the last day. They had now taken each other’s hand with plans of never letting go. They’ll figure it out as their lives progress. Together.</p>
<p>The End</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Kudos and or comments are welcome and much appreciated.<br/>Thank you for being awesome Reylos, this is for you.<br/>come find me on Twitter @Foreverafanof</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>